Prepare to Dice Edition

Month: April 2016

I thought it might be time to talk some about how skills work in Darkest Nights… at least at the moment. They are fairly broad but contain a specialization of a specific part of the field of expertise. As I’ve said before each one has its own “experience points” and thus improve individually, instead of character levels. If you fail a skill check of “your level” you gain one point, as you learn of your mistakes.

There are 9 basic skills, and one additional skill to fill out. This probably serves decently to fill out most niches. But let’s have a look at them, and how they work.

Well, well. Today there will be two more demons for Darkest Nights. These are a little more powerful, or at least resourceful, than the last ones. But first…

What differentiates a demon from a ghost? Not much actually. They are composed of the same thing and behave in similar ways. The key thing, however, are that demons have given up their humanity (or in some cases had none to begin with). They are so to say beyond redemption. It’s not necessarily that they cannot feel, but they are incapable of positive emotions. They are bound for suffering until their soul is destroyed and taken by another.

Now, I realize I haven’t actually talked about how the system for Darkest Nights work, but I thought this could possibly be useful for other people too. I’ll do a quick rundown on how the skills in Darkest Nights work too, just so you have some background to it.

Basically, there are a number of fairly broad skills, like fighting or survival. You have individual progression for each one, so essentially each skill has its own experience points. This might seem a lot but there aren’t that many of them, like 10 or something in total. At certain break points your skill level increases, based on how many advancement points you have, but I’ll talk more in-depth on that another time. There’s two ways to gain these points: learning by doing, and practice. If you fail a skill check of an appropriate difficulty to you you’ll gain a point. And if you practice, you will get points.

So I thought I’d make some more solid decisions about HP in the “D&D that isn’t even D&D anymore”-thing I’m kind of slowly making on the side for fun. This will involve HP gained from different sources, healing, and other such things, probably. I just write this up as I go along based on some prior thoughts.

It’s time for some more spirits for Darkest Nights. These are still in the lower end of power, at least to begin with. As every ghost they can grow more powerful with time, especially if there’s a source of energy and strong emotions involved.

Today we have two ghosts of different nature. Both can be harmful, but in most cases they are not intentionally so. These can both affect the physical world somewhat, which puts them above the shades, and indeed, like any other spiritual entity, they can feed on them. But enough on that, here they are: the wisp and the poltergeist.

More lore for Darkest Nights. Or rather, filling out the bestiary. This time it’s about some of the lesser forms that demons can take.

Demons are outsiders to the mortal realm, having never been born or lived. Some say that they are souls judged as unfit to even become human, and when compared to some of the evil human scum that exists, one can draw a conclusion about their character. They are a nasty bunch, the lot of them. Scheming, twisted, and delusional. Oftentimes they embody one or more of the cardinal sins, and these have most likely been drawn from the demons rather than the other way around. However, many demons have been driven partially or entirely mad by centuries or even millenia of torment, as they live in a torturous realm. This is called the nether by scholars , and by priests it’s Hell. It is the Abyss.

Good evening (or whatever time of day it is where you are). I’m still less sick than yesterday which is a relief. Now here’s another blog post. We’ll see how big it gets.

Hit points is one of these Dungeons & Dragon things that is equally widespread and silly. In its current for it’s basically “plot armor” that harmlessly soaks up all damage and allows you to survive stupid things. It’s said to represent stamina, skill, luck and other factors, to escape the brunt of the impact, but why does things like poison or falling damage get soaked just the same. An average level 10 Barbarian can survive a fall of straight down 90 meters (300 ft) landing flat on his face, and stand up without a scratch.It will almost deplete his hit points, but he will be totally fine. At impact, his speed would theoretically be about 40 m/s (~135 fps) in normal conditions. That’s like being hit by a truck going in 140 km/h. And that should be both more avoidable and survivable. And the thing is, the next second a passing Fighter might throw a leaf at him (an improvised weapon, doing… 1d4 + ability score modifier damage, so 5.5) and knocking him out outright. (This was calculated based on average rolled HP for the Barbarian with an 18 CON, and the passing by Fighter having a 16 STR. Not unreasonable probably.) And if the Barbarian is raging he will take half damage from all this, probably. How to you take a fall better when you are very upset?